The art challenge for the second week of the Documented Life Project was to use gesso in conquering the blank page (which is the theme for the month of January.) The journal prompt was, “The beginning is always today.” -Mary Shelley

We have seldom used gesso and decided to use it with stencils for this challenge. We first covered our pages with a layer of gesso and let it dry. Then using a palette knife we scraped gesso across the top of our stencils creating a slightly raised surface with the stencil design and let that dry.

We each used Gelatos to add color to our pages. The grandkids had a wonderful time using these techniques because they were allowed to use tools new to them. Here are the results of our challenge:

Jan:

Melinda:

Ninja Boy:

My Princess:

Miss Tickles: